Evidence of Things Not Seen
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: Who needed logic in the first place? It only got in the way.
1. Evidence of Things Not Seen

Title: Evidence of Things Not Seen

Author: ScullyAsTrinity

Rating: PG

Category: Angst/Humor/Romance

Summary: But how could they disengage when they had never even... engaged in the first place?

Dedication: To GraveDigger Resurrection, whose review this morning really warmed me up. Thank you!

Thanks: To Matthew, who made some sort of metaphor using this story and a wet butterfly. And who told me to slow down and nurture this idea, not to rush to post it.

---

There were moments, tiny fractured moments of unabashed weakness. He'd reach his arms out, longing for something to fill them, and she'd be there, arms splayed just as wide, waiting to receive his grief, his guilt, his confusion.

How could it be, after all of that time shoving her painfully away after she had fulfilled her duty... she came back for more? Some masochistic propensity for pain. And yet he couldn't help falling back into his plush illusion, filled with thoughts of her, with thoughts of them together.

Every time he allowed himself such an indulgence, he'd inevitably have to pull himself back out of the technicolor fantasy, infinitely more depressed than he was before. It appeared that he too, was masochistic.

For such a brilliant man, he felt incredibly, incredibly dense. Having to bat limitless emotions around inside of him, attempting to fit them all in place just so, to capitalize on space and function. The more volatile emotions were shoved to the back of his empty self: rage, love, lust, passion. Analytical emotive responses dominated the bulk of his self.

But, the only problem was... the volatile emotions would churn. They'd burn. Spread like a virus, creeping out of their storage area to sweep through him, presenting themselves in his everyday actions. Actions that before were flawless and calculated.

The left side of his face twitched, and it looked like he was grimacing, but really, what he was doing was attempting to forget about her, just for ten minutes. Ten, uninterrupted minutes of 'just Gil' time. That was impossible. As much as he couldn't stand to be around her alone, he couldn't be around himself. But that was for an entirely different reason.

He figured that maybe, just maybe, through some random, unforeseeable property of physics, she had fused to part of him and it had become thoroughly unable for the two of them to disengage.

But how could they disengage when they had never even... engaged in the first place?

That was it, Sara Sidle had his mind, the one thing that he prized above all else, running in circles, chasing ghosts. Or, he hoped they were ghosts. It would make it so much easier if they, the phantom emotions weren't real. That she wasn't real.

A sigh was just what he needed to push some hastily-culminating tension out of his body. Instead of invigorating him, as his sighs were prone to do, he sulked, slumping in his chair, falling under the weight that was the mere thought of Sara.

Years ago... was it years? Perhaps months. He valued their friendship months ago; it was good, growing, healthy. Platonic. And though his outward appearance bore no signs of anything more, his insides screamed for her in his arms. His blood surged to be heated by the passion she would surely infuse him with. He wanted, needed, loved, lusted for, hated, relished and despised her, all at once.

His face had been twitching alot lately in her presence, the thought of forgetting her seemingly so refreshing. Like jumping into the St. Lawrence in January-once you touch that icy water, all other thoughts leave your mind... except for how cold you are. And it hit him then, as he tried to forget her once more...

When he did, forget her that is, he was more devoid of everything than he had been when she was in his head, bogarting all of his thoughts for herself. So cold, without her in there.

So the decision was made: never let her get away from him, because, well, he didn't want to be devoid. Even with his inner filing system seriously compromised, she would stay there, in his head, in his heart.

He sighed again, slumping down further in his chair. If he did any more sighing, he'd be on the floor, under his desk... then where would he be?

A small voice popped out from the back of his carefully constructed web of emotions, taunting him, in that familiar female voce: "Under your desk, you idiot, that's where you'd be."

Oh yes, the desk was a compelling place for him to slam his head, and he heeded to it's siren call, skull resonating against the work-littered surface with a dull thunk. Thank goodness there were a few expense reports in between his head and the wood, it absorbed some of the impact.

He'd been perfectly fine living his life alone, until she had begun to pursue him. No, no. He had to reason with himself. Reorganizing his thoughts he realized, pinpointed the time when he'd realized the whole 'being alone' situation was going to be seriously compromised. It had been the third meeting of their seminar together. Not that she wasn't tantalizing enough as it was, she was discussing maggots and divesting evidence from their innards... and she had worn red.

Yeah, all she'd had to do was wear red and he was ready to throw up his hands in submission and move to the suburbs, maybe get a house, tear down the chain link and put up a picket fence.

Hello, Mr. Grissom, you have officially gone insane. Please proceed to that padded room on the left. Sara? Who is this Sara person, Mr. Grissom? We've told you, there is no Sara, she's just in your head.

But Sara Sidle was not content to simply plague him during his waking hours, both in body and in spirit. She was in his dreams, taunting him. Sometimes doing nothing more than sitting solitary in a room, stared at him. Waiting, so, so patiently, just waiting for him. The meaning wasn't lost on him. Sure, he was a psychologist but it didn't take much to interpret that sign.

Just the thought of her formed an endless spiral of steps, leading down through his being, much like the nine circles of hell. It was hell. It was heat, passion unbridled, love and lust and oh so much more that while his left brain struggled to pinpoint the emotion with a specific word... his right brain bitchslapped it's brother and told it to just shut the hell up.

It was impossible for him to stumble down a stair and understand what the step meant. What the stepping itself actually symbolized. But he was displacing again, stringing together foolish metaphors in order to outwile his heart. He'd never reach the basement, never get to the root of the problem, never really understand...

Voicing his thoughts, the little Sara spoke, would probably do wonders to alleviate him of his silent torture. But that would mean laying it all on the line, which in their case would be unbearly hard because, well... it wasn't straight. The line wasn't a parabola or a steady slope, it was a cacophony of peaks and valleys.

And dizzying peaks, followed by impossibly low valleys.

They were like a defunct connect-the-dots. Sure, the picture was supposed to be a donkey, but you missed dot thirteen and you instead wound up with an image that could quite possibly be found within the pages of the Karma Sutra.

Ugh, all of this manic jumble was giving him a headache. But, as always, the tiny persistent itch at the back of his skull escalated into incredible levels. Perhaps beating his head off the desk many times in rapid succession would cure him of it... No, no... that had just made it worse.

What was it? That intensely nervous feeling in his stomach which somehow spurred his fingers to dial six numbers in rapid succession, hovering over the seventh. What was it? That tiny push-pull in his head that pressed the 'end' button instead of the last, all-important nine? Why the hell couldn't his body work in sync with itself? Why was it a constant tug of war between his heart and his mind? And why, why were there so many whys, so many damned questions, questions he couldn't answer.

Truly hated the whys, especially when they were seemingly so answerable. If the whys were a person he'd risk the death penalty just to kill them all off. It was true, and he shrugged, just to prove to himself that his thoughts weren't as insanely obtuse as they seemed.

Worst of all, he was pretty sure if he just gave in (which wasn't as hard as he wanted it to seem, and he knew it) that he might just be happy. The notion was foreign, so foreign that if the jump was indeed made, he'd surely have to take a map along, just to be on the safe side. Maybe a passport too, you could never be too careful.

She fluttered about before him, dancing too and fro, at incredibly speeds and his eyes attempted to keep up. It was difficult to decipher just was she was saying or doing it, and by the time he did, she had already moved on the next piece of her own intricate puzzle; the next piece of his evidence.

He felt something creep outside of him and his mind attacked it.

'Damn you. Love, get back in your damn box. You don't come out unless I tell you to, damn it!"

---

The end???


	2. Dirt Roads and Dead Ends

**To: SMK Legacy. I loved your review. And your line in 'Tropical Scents' about Josh and Donna. And VeraLynn... whose Catharsis review left me all a-tingle.**

**Oh, and what's with everyone wanting to tattoo my name on their ass?**

**Everyone read Laura Katherine's 'The Great Escape.' It's utterly fantastic, I just can't seem to get enough. For real.**

---

It was time to be humble, to succumb to the complete misery of hitting rock bottom, both in body, and in spirit. Alas, she had become accustomed to the feeling long ago, but it always took a few abject moments to rearrange herself, dust things off and get settled in.

This particular time, she found things dustier than usual, but still in perfect condition. Like a well-kept bomb shelter, there was enough food and water down there to last her months. For that, she... well she wasn't sure if she was grateful.

And yes, yes it was true, she did harp on the topic, all the time in fact. So much so that it had become a character trait. Sad, but true. It was such a trait that it had become tiresome, not only to her, but to her coworkers, though they would voice no verbal complaint. That would be akin to acknowledging the large tutu-wearing elephant in the corner.

No, that corner. Right there, I'm pointing right to it. Yes, that one. That elephant, large as it was, represented the fraction of hope that was left, an itsy ember struggling to once again create a fire inside of her. It didn't seem like such a big deal, wanting someone but it was, it was if you were her and he was... him.

Nurturing this ghost of a chance is a tad hard here, so give her some credit. At least coherent thought had yet to elude her.

'The night is long.' She mused with herself. 'Still have a long way to go.'

She needed to get up off the couch, leave her apartment. But first, first, she had to prepare. Check herself. Emotional baggage? Check. Self-loathing? Both pairs? Check! Blinding love/hate for a one Gil Grissom? That's a huge red check.

Suddenly, the urge to up and leave left her and she settled down, putty under the weight of her emotional baggage. It was recently become impossible to carry. The luggage ripping open and spilling ancient emotions all over her shoes. And that upset her, because the shoes were new.

Maybe it was time to go away? A good time to leave? The thing that he never understood with her was that she had reasons, real reasons that he didn't. He wouldn't see them, couldn't see them, unless she grabbed up her coat and left. Maybe then he'd realize the grandeur of this "crush" she had.

After all, who the hell crushes on a fifty year old man? Certainly not her. If this was a crush, Sara Sidle was damn sure she couldn't handle the real thing. She'd more than likely explode, leaving only a pile of Sara-goo... Sara-goo that still longed for him in ways that no one could understand.

When she finally morphed back into her normal self, it would always take her a few minutes to retrace her steps and pick up all the pieces she'd left behind. Not bothering to fit them back into the complex Grissom-puzzle, she simply throws them into her soul's satchel and move on with the self-destruction. It took too much time, gathering up the fragments, trying to get them back into place just as more fell down to her.

Life was passing her by, but it wasn't her fault. It really wasn't. Okay, it was. Completely.

If she were a Cosmo quiz, she'd be 'Are You In Love?... or Treading Down a Hopeless Path Chasing a Man Who Loves You Back and Is Too Chicken To Admit It."

Oh, she wanted to do the 'Time Warp', see if it worked. Then again, she realized that if it had been featured in Rocky Horror Picture Show it wasn't too credible. But really, if she went back a few years, knowing what she knew now, then, would she make the same choices? Would she honestly up and move to Vegas?

Please. Of course she would, love was blind, even with twenty-twenty hindsight.

Truth be told, the shiny little glimmer of hope that resided inside of her was beginning to tarnish. Sara wasn't sure she had the energy anymore to care for and nurture it. Head lolled on the back of the couch, she felt far too much like watered down Campbell's soup; familiar, but no longer filling, no longer having any taste. She, she felt bland.

In fact, if she were an expression of taste, she'd surely be 'blah'. Some sad, drawn out piano piece that's been played so many times that it's no longer music, it's custom.

She wanted to be full of luster again, to have him take a cloth, a bit of cleaning solution and wipe off the proverbial dirt that he had caused to settle all over her.

And yet, after all of the self-loathing, the questioning, the many failed attempts at attempting a relationship, she was still as deep in as she had been from the beginning. Deeper even. And when he'd rejected her dinner offer, instead of becoming angered, she just picked up her well-worn shovel and dug deeper.

For such a glaringly intelligent woman, she felt so completely feeble-minded. And if it had been anyone else but him, she would have done away with the notion a long time ago.

But as simple as love was, it was intricately complex. Layers and layers of meaning and circumstance and intent to sift through. Sara was glad indeed that she had a handy shovel to sort through all of it.

She was mixing metaphors so quickly, and she hated it, but it did make her feel better. So how could that be a bad thing? Her mind spun off on a torrent of literary explanation and she smiled, nicely surprised with the interpretation she'd formulated.

Her desire for him was so obvious, it was magnesium road flare, so bright you can't look at it... and his? A spark, a glimmer... does she see it in him at all, or is it just dazzle from being too close to her own fire... But that metaphor only served to make her love seem artificial. Which it wasn't. At all.

A sudden wave of anger overtook her and she got up, grabbed a pillow and punched it into submission. Not that it had been doing anything before, it was just a nice throw pillow. Pretty. Harmless. Poor pillow. Sara began to cry, her head pulling her this way and that, every though driving her down the dead end dirt road that was Gil Grissom.

The tears spurred something to bubble up within her, mind forcing her to remember scant moments when she'd catch him staring, his forehead an intricate map of intensity. Was he trying to dissect her-what was going on in her head, perhaps? It was amusing that he could sit there and hope to extract silent secrets from her, all he really had to do was ask and she'd tell willingly.

Sighs were now her best friends. She found herself emitting them at moments when he'd give her a little morsel that would feed her ember of hope. But it wasn't the same. There used to be butterflies when he'd send an innuendo her way, now there was just a compulsion to steal it and tuck it away because she wasn't sure if they'd stop coming. And she wanted to remember everything if, for some reason, one day, the innuendos, the tiny morsels of hope... stopped coming.

And that was a distinct possibility. Her head fell onto the battered pillow and yes, she sighed. Twice. The second forced her eyes to slide shut and the images came, colorful and unwanted.

The only true conclusion that she'd draw up from all of her encounters with him in the past that did not waver was this: Men. Are. Idiots.


	3. And for the Tumult

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, I really had fun writing this. All my love to Matthew. And thanks to Lauren for banishing my doubts.

---

Generally, this is how it went: She pulled and he pushed. Not because that's what the proper balance of things required, but because he couldn't get close to her and not feel anything. So, she'd take hold of his lapels and yank him towards her with a force that certainly was more than he had bargained for. But, he'd gain his footing and shove her away, sending her spinning off into the void before she found her way back once more.

This time, this time... it was different. She had tugged lightly, very, very easily, and he'd come and toppled straight into her, their heads metaphorically bashing against each other, knocking both, quite literally senseless.

Her heart raced, came full force when she realized that yes, she'd finally done it and no, it hadn't taken all of her strength to do it. There he was, standing before her, panting out his aggression and his exhaustion. There he stood before her, dripping rain onto the 'Welcome' mat in front of her door. Sara watched as the droplets fell to be sopped up by the fabric as if to say 'Yes, you are welcome.'

Then, she realized how truly cliché the moment was, there on the threshold of her apartment, Gil Grissom stood dripping wet, imploring her to say something, anything. And instead of saying a thing, she laughed at him, full and throaty.

There he stood before her, looking forlorn and torn, covered in rain. Dripping, dripping, dripping on her doormat. He'd brought the desert chill with him, and it caused her to shiver, there in the open doorway.

This time she pulled and he came willingly to her. Stepped into her haven and shut the door behind him. A towel was flung his way and he was vaguely reminded of the old adage about 'throwing in the towel.' But that meant that she was giving up. Perhaps he should have been the one to throw the towel at her.

For he was finally giving in. And yes, he felt like a huge weight had lifted off of his chest, being able to admit to himself that he wanted her, needed her, in a new way. A way he'd never had her in.

All of it, everything could go horribly wrong or so very impossibly right with the clutching of one moment. She should be gone by now, he knew it. In his heart, in his head, he wished that she were gone so he didn't feel quite so guilty about having her here, pining away after him.

But she was pining, and so was he, in his own way of course. Deep, in the back of one of the boxes, a feeling arose and slammed against his chest full force, making him want to take her face in his hands, smooth away the worry lines, many of which he was sure that he'd caused. Smooth them out until they were all gone, and he'd be able to kiss her coolly, regretting nothing.

Grissom wondered, if she closed her eyes and thought of him, did she see the stars? Did she see the unobscured and endless sky, just as he did when he closed his eyes and thought of her.

Years and years and years of wondering would come to a close, she'd make sure of it, tonight. Tonight, they'd be set free.

She smiled at his bulky frame taking up space in her living room. It wasn't enough to have him in her apartment, not now. Not after giving herself so much time to think things over. She needed to show him just why she wanted him, just why she needed him. Because after all, men were idiots.

And then, and then again...

Maybe it would be as good as she thought. But then again, maybe it would be as awkward as he imagined.

Perhaps it would be lethargic and sweet.

Or awkward and embarrassing.

Sweat and skin?

She knew for sure that when it happened, her heart would crack and she'd be flooded with feelings that she'd never felt before.

He wondered if he'd hate her after, if he'd loathe the experience. Loathe the experience and still willfully indulge in the warmth of her body. A sensual pleasure.

It didn't matter.

She was still waiting, standing there before him in her living room, making it a point to stare directly into his eyes. Ironically enough, he stared back, droplets of water falling from his hair onto her hardwood floor. It was too difficult a task not to follow the little rivulets down to his chest.

There was a puddle of water forming on her floor, directly at their feet. She surely would have cared if she wasn't so busy staring at his shirt as it clung to his skin. Returning to his eyes, she was quite literally caught up in the tumult she viewed in them. Blacks and blues and greens and grays...

He wanted to be the very last to love her. She wanted to be the first to love him.

Doing the only thing that her unsettled brain could think to do was kiss him, so she did, soft and fast and far too quickly for her to really enjoy it, or process any of the thoughts passing through her brain.

So he did the only thing his unsettled brain could think to do, and that was to kiss her, with his open mouth, plunging his tongue inside. That stopped all thought for both of them, leaving room for the emotions to course through, confusing the both of them.

Who needed logic in the first place? It only got in the way.

But she decided that she wouldn't allow them to be confused this time, not this time. Not after taking such a huge leap and stepping over all the obstacles that had come before. This time they wouldn't think, they'd just feel.

So, again, she did the only thing that she could think to do. She pulled him towards her bedroom.

Oh yes, and this time, he came willingly.

-fin-


End file.
